Sir Walter Raleigh lived in England from around 1552 until 1618. We know a good deal about his life, but I’ll simply include the points necessary for understanding the significance of a certain one of his poems. In 1603 he was accused of being involved in a plot against King James I, though the judge refused to call the accuser into court for questioning, and Raleigh claimed the accusation was false. The King released Raleigh from the Tower of London in 1617 and allowed him to go on an expedition to Venezuela, under condition that he wouldn’t stir up trouble with the Spanish. However, one of Raleigh’s commanders attacked a Spanish outpost (against Raleigh’s orders). A Spanish ambassador demanded that King James execute Raleigh for this, and, since the King wanted to keep the peace with the Spanish, he imprisoned Raleigh in the Tower again. While in the Tower, awaiting his death, Raleigh wrote the following poem:
EVEN such is Time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wander’d all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
Raleigh was beheaded the following day. God grant us boldness to face the changes and chances of this life, as well as hope in the resurrection when we face death, for the sake of his Son.
In Christ,
Pastor Richard
